Santa Rita, where everybody knows your name

When we rolled back into Santa Rita the welcome back we received warmed our hearts and helped remind us why we do the work we do. Our last two days with the community were filled with visits and when it came time to say goodbye, we faced one of the saddest times of our trip. But one great thing about our grand journey is as we make friends in nearly every corner of the globe, and we always have our new “families” to go back to visit!

Everyone in Santa Rita was wonderful. Invitations were always coming to try this special Tica dish at my house, or come and visit my farm, or just kids coming over to play. As for our host “family” we couldn’t have dreamed of people we got along with better, from late night draft games to dance lessons in the living room to learning to cook the local favorites. When it came to teaching in the school or working with the women’s group on their recycling program it fit perfectly with the goals of GROW and we were happy to be able to help.

Our projects there turned out great as the people of the community took charge of all the work with us just giving the helping hand of funds and making sure they had thought everything through. They had to submit a proposal and do all the leg work themselves. Sadly because of our time frame this meant that we were gone before the recycling centers were actually built, but it is much more sustainable for community to do the work themselves giving them a sense of pride and responsibility to keep the program running. We’re just excited to get back and see it all. In the meanwhile, they’ll be updating us and we’ll be updating our website. We did other work in Santa Rita as well, and you can read about it all on the GROW website.